Vice President Biden Visits VCU to Discuss Gun Safety

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Vice President Joe Biden traveled to VCU today to host a roundtable discussion on gun safety.

The vice president conducted a two-hour closed-door session to discuss gun safety, universal background checks for all gun buyers, expansion of mental health services and the need for improved information sharing.

VCU President Michael Rao, Police Chief John Venuti and Professor and Chair of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Bela Sood, M.D., who also worked on a review panel on gun safety after the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, participated in the conversation, which also included Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, Deputy U.S. Attorney General Jim Cole, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott and other state and local representatives.

“We wanted to pick their brains about what we should be doing,” Biden said in remarks to reporters after the roundtable discussion. “We have an obligation to act – not wait.”

Rao said it’s important that people at the highest level of government are working on this issue.

“We want more than anything to be a safe learning environment,” Rao said.    

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